This year I had the opportunity to get the HTC One (M8) on launch day (March 25th).

Since then the HTC One M8 got my primary smartphone.

HTC One M8 – Design

I’ve been a long time HTC user and I have to tell you: This is The smartphone I’ve been most satisfied with. I actually said the same last year about the M7, but it’s true. HTC improved somethings I really looked forward to. For me, as a global traveller and geek, global network support is important.
HTC improved that by adding Quadband 3G support to the M8. Huge thumbs up!
The screen is as amazing as last year, but it’s slightly bigger (5″ vs. 4.7″) and kept its Crisp and clear picture quality.

The Ultrapixel camera from 2013 also made it to this years top model, but also added a second back camera to measure the depth. This allows the camera app to add some interesting effects, even in post-production.

The extraordinary battery life from the HTC One M7 also got improved. I still get 2 days out of the battery, while regularly syncing emails and feeds, but the gaming performance got a major step up, even in energy saving mode.

I especially like the HTC BoomSound speakers. They are crisp , loud and clear like its predecessor. They really set the standard of sound quality for the smartphone industry.

HTC put all this features into a new unibody design, which has more round edges (compare to the M7) and uses even more aluminium. They also updated their famous Android UI. HTC Sense 6 is now the base. It’s even faster and cleaner than its predecessor. BlinkFeed, the mail app and many other menus got updated and simplified.

After 3 month of using it. Do I still like it? Absolutely. It’s one of the best smartphone I’ve seen so far, it has an amazing battery life and an awesome camera.

So a few weeks ago I decided to play a vintage pc game on my computer.
Some of you may remember the fight helicopter game called Nuclear Strike from the year 1999. The game ran only on Win 95 and 98 back then.

The installation on my Windows 7 computer was flawless. But when I clicked on that little desktop icon on my modern Windows 7 PC, the only thing I saw was an error message and the game crashed.

So here’s the question:

Does Nuclear Strike run on Windows Vista and Windows 7?

The answer is: Yes.
You only need to install a small tool, which enabled your modern pc graphic’s card to work with this classic game. It took me quite a while to figure it out.

In the late 90s/early 2000s many 3d games based on the so called “Glide API”, which helped developers to create amazing 3D games much quicker.
Today’s graphic cards don’t support Glide by default. You need a so called “Glide wrapper” to make some vintage games communicate with your modern highend graphics card.

You can find several free glide wrappers on the internet.

I decided to try nGlide first and installed it. And bam! No more than 5 minutes later I clicked on the Nuclear Strike desktop icon and the intro video appeared. Amazing!

You can find nGlide on the official website. Maybe you have other old games that you want to play, too. Then I recommend to take also a look at their game compatibility list.

I’ve been a long time HTC user and I have to tell you: This is The smartphone I’ve been most satisfied with.
An amazing screen, awesome camera, top reception (my first smartphone with reception in the elevator) and extraordinary battery life. I get 2 days out of the battery, while regularly syncing emails and feeds. A perfect smartphone for Ingress players 😉 I especially like the HTC BoomSound speakers. They really set the standard of sound quality for the smartphone industry. Crisp and loud sound.

Do I still like it? Absolutely. It’s the most beautiful smartphone I’ve seen so far, it has an amazing battery life and an awesome camera.

Read my “HTC One Diary” to learn more about the features and innovations HTC has put into this amazing smartphone.

As one of the first, HTC reintroduced the IR blaster in phones in 2013. The HTC One features an hidden IR blaster behind the power button.

In combination with HTC Sense TV this gives you the opportunity to control your TV and Home theater system with your smartphone.

Sense TV features an EPG with photos of upcoming shows and movies for your personal channel listing. There’s one thing I don’t like about it, at the time of writing it is not possible to configure your channel listing manually. You have to use a preset. According to some blogs, this will change with the upcoming update to Android 4.2.2. You can add your favourite TV shows to a reminder list and both the calendar and HTC Blinkfeed will remind you when the program begins.

Why the IR blaster a very humorous feature is, can be seen in the video below. It was made by an HTC One owner in Malaysia:

It’s almost a week since I received my HTC One. Hence it’s time to reflect on the design of this amazing smartphone.

HTC One – Design

This smartphone is build with an (okay almost) all-metal body.

I have had several HTC smartphones before. The metal case is gorgeous and the design is so sleek that it’s not easy to put into words.
The HTC One has the best design and body of them all. I was told that it takes several hours for each body to be cut out of a metal block by a computer controlled diamond cutter.

It’s huge compared to the size of my “classic” HTC Desire, but it feels great in the palm of my hand. It has an amazing premium look and just feels right. It doesn’t feel like cold metal and it’s less slippery than other phones I own. It’s just amazing!

HTC One – Design

Read more about the HTC One design and all-metal design in the links below.

Saturday is usually the day when I go buying groceries for the coming week, enjoy walking and a hour of playing Ingress.

HTC One – battery life

During this 3 hour “run” I listen to music on Spotify via my bluetooth stereo headset.

To say it with technical terms: GPS and Bluetooth is continuously enabled, higher 3G data usage and longer screen-on time. All this usually consumes a lot of battery.

With my previous smartphones the battery was pretty much always down to 20% after 3 hours. With the HTC One on the other hand, I still have about 60-70% when I completed this “run”.

On an average week day (Monday to Friday), I usually use less GPS, but I have a higher refresh intervals for both emails and Blinkfeed.

I don’t understand why people don’t want to buy the HTC One, just because it has no exchangeable battery.
Have a look at the screenshot. After a usual week day I still have 71% battery left. My HTC One has an amazing battery life!

It’s day 4 of my HTC One diary. It’s time to test the HTC One Ultrapixel camera and its low light capabilities.

As you may know, HTC decided to put a 4 megapixels sensor into the HTC One, while most competitors continued on the old fashion way of putting even higher megapixels into their latest models. 8 and 13 megapixels are “common”.

But there’s an advantage of less megapixels while keeping the sensor size or making it even bigger. It means the pixels on the sensor are bigger, which theoretically results in much better photos under low light conditions. E.g. in restaurants, at night, bars, …. You get it.

Here are some examples I took. They are amazing! Keep in mind these have been taken with a smartphone camera.

HTC Blinkfeed is an amazing new feature, currently exclusive to the HTC One.

It replaces the standard home screen with a scrollable stream of information. HTC Blinkfeed merges recent news, latest posts from social media websites (Facebook, Twitter,…) with pictures from Flickr and calendar events.

I configured it to only update when connected to a WiFi or whenever I want to refresh it manually. I changed it to my second home screen, which means it’s only a swipe to the left away.

By the way. HTC Blinkfeed also displays upcoming TV shows, after you configured the TV feature in your HTC One.

The morning after I received my HTC One. I entered the elevator in our office building. First thing that happened:

9 am

Hey, is that an HTC One?Me: YesDo you like it?Me: Absolutely. It’s amazing!And the gap problem. I haven’t seen any gap on your HTC One.Me: I heard they fixed it and only a small percentage was affected early after the release.Hey thanks. I will buy it.

Great way to start the morning and makes me smile. 😉

Lunch break

We had pasta together in our cafeteria. One of my colleagues grabbed my HTC One from the table. A few moments later: “Oh I believe I just took 20 photos of you.” 😉
Another colleague wanted to see (hear) the HTC Boomsound feature. It’s an amazing feature, but the atmosphere in our cafeteria was a bit too noisy.
I showed it later to another colleague on the way back to our office.